Autograph by Ryan O’Neal: Photo with Signature. CoA

Born in California and as a young man, O'Neal sometimes got into trouble and at one point served a 51-day jail sentence for assault and battery after getting into a fight at a New Year's party. Before becoming an actor, O'Neal was a lifeguard and an amateur boxer who was a one-time Golden Gloves contender. In film and television, O'Neal started out as a stunt man on Tales of the Vikings, a German television series. His parents were working on the same show.

Upon his return to the States, O'Neal continued finding work in small parts on television shows, getting his first regular acting job on the Western Empire (1962). Following the demise of Peyton Place, O'Neal made his feature debut in The Big Bounce (1969), but did not get his big break until he was chosen from 300 auditioners to play Oliver Barrett opposite Ally McGraw in Arthur Hiller's maudlin adaptation of Erich Seagal's best-seller Love Story- (1970). The film was a smash hit and landed O'Neal an Oscar nomination. Two more starring roles followed this success but it was not until he played an uptight professor who finds himself beleaguered by a free-spirited, love-struck Barbra Streisand in Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up Doc? (1972) that he rivaled the success of Love Story. It has been in light, romantic fare such as this that O'Neal has excelled. His next popular role was that of an exasperated con man in Paper Moon, the charming comedy that netted his co-star and real-life daughter, Tatum O'Neal, an Oscar.

O'Neal then played the title role in Stanley Kubrick's slow-paced epic Barry Lyndon (1975). By the late '70s, O'Neal's career had gone into decline and he had begun appearing in such dismal outings as Oliver's Story (the 1978 sequel to his first big hit) and The Main Event (1979) which reteamed him with Streisand. The '80s were even tougher for O'Neal, even though he appeared regularly onscreen.